As voters in Uganda prepare for a contentious
general election, CWS has worked extensively to provide community leaders
with training in peace building and ways to resolve conflicts without violence.
There have been reports of sporadic violence but none in areas where CWS
has offered its training.

Two rival candidates - incumbent Yoweri
Museni and Dr. Kizza Besigye - are struggling to gain the final votes
in what has been a very close race for President.

At least 80 people were killed Monday (March
1) and 350 are missing and feared dead in a mudslide that swept down the
slope of Mt. Elgon in eastern Uganda, engulfing the villages of Kubehwo,
Namakansa and Nametsi. Homes and livestock were also destroyed. There were
reportedly only 43 survivors; 80 bodies have been pulled out of the mud.

Church World Service is supporting the
response of the Foundation for Development of Needy Communities, a Uganda-based
CWS partner, which is already begun providing psychosocial support for
traumatized survivors.

"By joining my youth working group,
I not only gained new friends, but also learned how to run my own small
business, selling oranges," explains 13-year-old youth caregiver Andrew
Tumusiime. "This has helped me to care for my mother, who is HIV-positive,
and my younger brother."

Tumusiime is taking part in the Church
World Service-supported Giving Hope Program. Through the program, young
people are empowered to continue their education, grow food, make items
to sell, or start small businesses.

Even though a few families have chosen
to return to their homes in Pakistan's Swat valley, Church World Service
is urging continued support for the millions who remain displaced by fighting
between Pakistan army and Taliban forces, which began in early May.

"We know no one is more eager to
bring this emergency to a close than those who fled the violence,"
says CWS Emergency Response Director Donna Derr.

WEST POKOT, KENYA and MOROTO COUNTY,
UGANDA--World Water Day 2009 (March 22) is accompanied by increased
regional water shortages in the United States and around the world. The
shortages, attributed to climate change, are causing conflict, stress and
competition between communities for the dwindling resource.

But two communities in Uganda have decided
to stop fighting and to work together to solve their water problems with
the simple but highly effective technology of sand dams.

'In all the places where the churches
are providing assistance, the food is fresh-they are cooking and providing
fresh food everyday,' explains a pastor in Myanmar.

The pastor coordinates the relief effort
among churches throughout the cyclone-affected areas. Speaking from 28
years of affiliation with Church World Service, the pastor says, 'Churches
(in Myanmar) provide support in a non-discriminatory way--this is the witness
of the church.' Church World Service has been working through partnerships
in Myanmar since 1959.

"Receiving these layette kits showed
Church World Service's love for the people of Liberia," said a mother
in Bomi County, rural Liberia, during a recent distribution of CWS Baby
Kits, Hygiene Kits, and Blankets. Including a shipment currently underway,
in the past year Church World Service has provided more than $576,000 in
material assistance for Liberian families still recovering from more than
a decade of war and conflict.

"Seeing the girls empowered with
education...girls fetching water near their homes and then going to school--that
makes me happy," says Deborah Katina, Executive Director of Yang'at
("care" in the Pokot language), a Church World Service partner
in western Kenya.

In more than 50 countries around the world
children are being kidnapped and forced to become child soldiers. Child
soldiers are children younger then eighteen who are directly or indirectly
used as combatants, porters, human mine detectors, sex slaves, and/ or
for other forms of forced labor.

SITUATION: Even though the Democratic
Republic of Congo has held its first open elections in 40 years, violence
by militias and foreign troops near DRC's borders threatens millions of
refugees who have endured decades of conflict.

"We extend our gratitude [for the]
support that you continue to give to FDNC. Our gratitude will continue
to be shown by... being good stewards," says the executive director
of FDNC (Foundation for Development of Needy Communities), Sam Watulatsu,
of the assistance that Church World Service is providing the organization
to help improve the lives of vulnerable people - particularly girls --
in parts of rural Uganda.

FDNC is working to reduce the number
of uneducated girls and street children by alleviating poverty in some
80 families.

Moringa
Tree -- "Our seed distribution program is exceeding our wildest
expectations thanks to CWS and OPTIMA, Ltd.," says Henry Rigali, who
is part of a group retracing the steps of a famous 1857 trek to find the
headwaters of the Nile.